Semiconductor memory devices include volatile memory devices and nonvolatile memory devices. Read and write speeds of the volatile memory device are fast, while they lose contents stored therein at power-off. In contrast, the nonvolatile memory devices retain contents stored therein even at power-off. Thus, the nonvolatile memory devices are used to store contents which must be retained regardless of whether power is supplied.
Examples of a volatile memory device include a static RAM (SRAM), a dynamic RAM (DRAM), a synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), etc. A nonvolatile memory device retains its stored data even when its power supply is interrupted. Examples of a nonvolatile memory device include a read only memory (ROM), a programmable ROM (PROM), an electrically programmable ROM (EPROM), an electrically erasable and programmable ROM (EEPROM), a flash memory, a phase change RAM (PRAM), a magnetic RAM (MRAM), a resistive RAM (RRAM), a ferroelectric RAM (FRAM), etc. A flash memory may be classified into a NOR type flash memory and a NAND type flash memory.
In particular, among nonvolatile memory devices, a flash memory device is advantageous to an appliance as an auxiliary mass storage device in that it is highly integrated as compared with a conventional EEPROM.
A variety of memory systems have been produced with use of the flash memory. The memory system stores or reads data at or from the flash memory through a protocol. A variety of techniques have been proposed to shorten a time taken to conduct the write or read operation of the memory system.
A storage device that uses a flash memory as the storage medium is considered to have increased life span, less power consumption and better access time in comparison to a storage device that includes disk drives.
A block in a flash memory is a storage area of a unit for collectively erasing data, and a page is a unit for reading and writing data. A plurality of pages may be provided in a single block. Due to its characteristic feature, the flash memory is not typically able to directly rewrite data. In other words, when the flash memory is to rewrite data stored therein, it saves the stored valid data in another block, and then erases the stored data in block units. The flash memory thereafter writes data into the block from which the data was erased.
Deduplication (also referred to as data duplication reduction) is for reducing the capacity cost of storage devices. Deduplication associates a plurality of logical blocks storing identical data with one physical block storing such data, and enables the economization of the storage data capacity. With the use of deduplication, since it is possible to reduce the data rewriting count, the life span of the flash memory can be prolonged. Also the storage capacity of the device may be increased.